LQQK WHAT BEN DID! MY BELTWAY BANDIT'S SURPRISE...

Early Tuesday morning, I mean EARLY Tuesday morning, my phone rang. My heart always sinks when the phone rings at the "witching hour" because it is generally not good news. Most of the time the reason behind an early morning phone call is either: "KIM WHERE ARE YOU? DID YOU OVERSLEEP???" or some kind of emergency from a loved one. So, I always get a little nervous when it rings at, say 3:30am.

But today was different. My 3:30am phone call was from my OVER - THE - TOP - THOUGHTFUL - LOVE - OF - MY - LIFE - I'D - EAT - AN - EARTHWORM (poetic license) - FOR - YOU - FIANCE.

The conversation went something like this:

Ben "What time do you think you'll be exiting off the Beltway?"

Kim "I'm about 4 minutes away. I am running very late and I am really hungry because I was too tired to get dinner last night and I noticed you took all the leftovers from the baby shower with YOU and didn't leave me much." (I HATE ME!)

Ben "Well, I have some bad news. You are going to be later."

Kim "How come?"

Ben "Because I am pulled over on the side of the road waiting for you to pick up your breakfast. There is some home made strawberry short cake, too."

Kim (Heart breaking and still HATING herself) "I love you. I am sorry I was such a crank. I can't wait to see you."

And with that I was moments away from a surprise breakfast rendez vous just inside the Capital Beltway from Ben. SIGH. Here is a quickie video of Ben at 3:30am. I had him sit in the back of the Pryus so I could get some kind of light on him. I was a HUNGRY GIRL (see future blog), but I most certainly always am a VERY LUCKY GIRL.

Sorry ladies, he's taken.

PS! Check out the "What kind of American accent do you have" quiz to the right. I took it and it nailed me...almost. It said I was from the northeast, most likely NY City. Close (about 15 miles west and across the Hudson in North Jersey...)

BLOG SUPPORT! BLOG PREVIEW FOR THE WEEK!!

I have been playing around with my blog. It is getting addictive. It has me thinking, how did we research stuff before the internet? The Dewey Decimal System?

I found a really great blog, written by Peter Chen, and it is all about helping the novice blogger improve their blogging skills!

Here are some of his helpful links: http://testing-blogger-beta.blogspot.com/,

http://dummies-guide-to-google-blogger.blogspot.com/, http://bloggerfordummies.blogspot.com/

I have also found it useful to read through his comments section because a lot of thoughtful people made remarks that helped me to understand his concepts better. So Peter? Hats off to you for helping us novices! Check him out!

Okay, on another note, I am getting ready to post my next Wedding Watch update. By the look of the poll to the right, I'll be blogging about how Ben and I met. This should be fun. If you haven't voted yet for what wedding topic I should blog about next, have at it!

Also to come this week -- I went hiking at Ricketts Glen State Park in Pennsylvania over the weekend. In a word? WATERFALLS! I have the video to prove it!

And finally in the week ahead, continuing with my blog "tease", Ben did something absolutely THOUGHTFUL today. It will make my fellow female blog readers go "ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhh....I wish my guy would do that!" It will have the male population saying "Why did Ben have to go and do that!" What could it have been, pray tell? Stay tuned...it is all ahead this week in my blog!

WHAT BIRD SONG IS THIS?

It wasn't just a nesting skunk I had on my mind over the weekend...

Now that SPRING has SPRUNG, all the wildlife is busy, presumably, getting ready to find mates. With that, comes bird songs. Please play the video below (be sure to turn off the volume on my playlist to the right) and listen to a particularly loud bird who kept singing as I painted my house's exterior. Any guesses as to what it is?

I recall doing my weather from our weather terrace last year and I think there was a similar bird song in the background that I commented about on the air. I might be mistaken, but if it was the same song as the one above, then I think a local birder emailed me that it was the Cardinal's "warning song" . I searched around the internet to try to listen to Cardinal songs and found some similar songs, but nothing matched this one above exactly.

I like how people string together words that sound like the song to help identify it. One woman wrote (somewhere...can't remember where I saw this) that she heard the "CHEER CHEER CHEER PRETTY PRETTY PRETTY" Cardinal song. So far, this is the closest Onomatopoeia I can find (I think that is the first time I have used "Onomatopoeia" in a sentence in 20 years!)

So, I'm going with Cardinal for my guess. What is yours?

Did you know?

• The female Northern Cardinal usually sings (from the nest) to the male? She might give information about what kind of food to bring back -- "Hey honey, can you stop by the grocery store and pick up some skim milk?" (That is how my song with Ben might sound -- but I might add to it -- "Don't forget the Pepperidge Farm Saulsalito cookies, too!" -- that would be my more complicated song.)



• The male cardinal is the brighter red colored one. The female only has reddish areas on her tail and wings and is overall a tan color. Turns out that the more vivid red the male is, the better chances he has of reproducing as he can hold territories with denser vegetation (I guess he stands out more!)